NEW DAY DAWNS AS WOMEN TAKE MMA SPOTLIGHT

Anaheim 
Monday morning, there will be an 8-year-old asked by her teacher what she wants to do when she grows up. After one classmate says doctor and another says actress, she will utter with pride — “I want to beat the snot out of anyone who dares step in the octagon with me.”

Some might think this disturbing. Others may label it savagery. What it really is, however, is progress.

For decades, sports have served as a catalyst for racial, gender and social advancement. They have given us Jackie Robinson, Billie Jean King, and last October, openly-gay boxer Orlando Cruz.

Now, we have Ronda Rousey, a 26-year-old MMA fighter who is as bold as she is beautiful. And if there are any lingering expectations as to how women should behave, she’s giving those expectations a roundhouse to the face.

Rousey made history in Anaheim Saturday by defeating San Diego’s Liz Carmouche with an arm bar in the first-ever UFC fight featuring women. But it wasn’t the first-round submission alone that helped further women’s place in the world of mixed martial arts, it was the entire spectacle — pre- and post-fight included — that had the Honda Center rockin’ as though it were overtime of a Game 7.

It started with the eyes — perhaps the most intense pair there is in sports. Rousey could mug people on the street with those eyes alone, and you know Carmouche thought “help me” as soon as she got a look at Ronda.

But while that stare may have inspired fear in Rousey’s opponent, it incited fervor throughout the arena — the thousands of fans screaming like soldiers bellowing a war cry.

Rousey’s intensity instantly transformed the card’s main event from a women’s fight to a plain ol’ fight. And when Carmouche climbed up on Ronda’s back and nearly took down the undefeated bantamweight champ with a rear naked choke, it became clear that Saturday would not serve as a mere coronation — that Rousey was going to have to earn her keep as her sport’s supreme queen.

This is what fellow female MMA fighter Sarah Kaufman was trying to convey from her seat at the Honda Center, arguing that not only was women’s combat exhilarating, but often “the best fight on the card.”

The fans — male and female alike — did little to dispute the contention, vehemently chanting “Ronda! Ronda!” throughout the four-minute-and-49-second fight. And when Rousey sealed it with her signature arm bar — improving to 7-0 in her pro career in the process — the excitement in the building was palpable.

It was a watershed moment for fighters such as Julie Kedzie, who remembers the days when women weren’t allowed on the bus with their male MMA counterparts. Kedzie predicted that, after the fight “hundreds of little girls are going to put gloves on because of Ronda.”

Fighter Sara McMann added that the women of MMA were different than other girls growing up, that they weren’t “dreaming about their wedding or trying to get their MRS degree. This is helping other girls be who they really are.”